{"id":231492,"date":"2026-03-22T18:13:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T18:13:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/231492\/"},"modified":"2026-03-22T18:13:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T18:13:10","slug":"urban-renewal-and-san-franciscos-fillmore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/231492\/","title":{"rendered":"Urban Renewal and San Francisco\u2019s Fillmore"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s not very many people left to tell the story,\u201d says Mattie Scott, a community activist on the San Francisco Police Commission<\/a>. Scott, who is 73, is referring to the transformation of San Francisco\u2019s Fillmore district through urban renewal, the redevelopment program that starkly altered her former neighborhood\u2014and many others across the country. \u201cEveryone is getting up in age now,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

Currently, the Fillmore is undergoing another transformation, owing to initiatives like the billionaire-backed Upper Fillmore Revitalization Project<\/a> and the city-funded renovation of the Buchanan Street Mall. For many former and current residents, these projects exacerbate the very problems\u2014wounds from years ago\u2014they\u2019re claiming to address.<\/p>\n

In 1949, the Federal Housing Act cleared the path for urban renewal, allocating $1.5 billion to bulldozing and redeveloping entire neighborhoods in inner cities around the country. The San Francisco Redevelopment Agency promptly identified the Western Addition, where the Fillmore is located, as a blighted area. Urban renewal programs targeted communities of color with surgical precision; the Fillmore, then known as the Harlem of the West, was 60 percent Black. Home to a thriving jazz scene, the neighborhood regularly hosted Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, and Billie Holiday at its many Black-owned bars and nightclubs.<\/p>\n

This article appears in Issue 35 of Alta Journal.
SUBSCRIBE<\/a><\/p>\n

Over two decades, nearly 20,000 Western Addition residents lost their homes in one of the largest redevelopment projects on the West Coast. The demolition displaced 4,729 households, destroyed 2,500 Victorians, and closed 883 businesses. As a resident says in the 1964 documentary Take This Hammer<\/a>, \u201cYou want me to tell you what kind of job they gonna give us? They gonna let us tear down our own homes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, as the city pours increasing attention and resources into revitalizing downtown, some Fillmore residents feel forgotten. Officials have effectively abandoned the Fillmore Heritage Center, a 50,000-square-foot city-owned building dedicated in 2007 as a hub for live music and Black-owned businesses. The venue shuttered in 2019 after failing to attract and retain tenants, leaving a gaping hole in the neighborhood. <\/p>\n

Cheryl White, who is 69, grew up in the Fillmore in the 1960s. She cites the recent closure of the Safeway\u2014the neighborhood\u2019s sole grocery store\u2014as the latest in a long line of disappointments for the Black residents of San Francisco. \u201cThis is the worst place,\u201d she says of the city. \u201cI don\u2019t understand how people live in this area.\u201d<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s the financial fallout, as families of former residents reckon with lost generational wealth. In 2026, a three-bedroom house on Fillmore Street fetches over $3 million. During redevelopment, the city issued 5,894 certificates of preference in exchange for people\u2019s homes\u2014paper promises that those displaced would have priority access to affordable housing in the neighborhood. The vast majority of the certificates were never redeemed, as construction dragged on for years and property values skyrocketed. Over 25 percent of certificate holders are already deceased. Now, the certificates can only be exchanged for status on an affordable housing waiting list, and many of those eligible, having established roots in another location, are no longer interested.<\/p>\n

Still, there have been some success stories. Majeid Crawford, the executive director of a San Francisco nonprofit that helps locate certificate holders and their next of kin, has seen unhoused individuals find shelter and families return to the Bay Area. But Crawford\u2019s also observed that many people have lost trust in the city and its promise.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow many times can the Black community rebuild itself?\u201d he asks.<\/p>\n

Crawford, who is 53, grew up in the Fillmore in a family of musicians. In 1978, his father, after witnessing the devastation of his community, moved to Paris, where Black musicians were welcomed, and didn\u2019t return. Crawford never saw his dad again.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like urban renewal took my dad from me,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

\"onceSAN FRANCISCO HISTORY CENTER, SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC LIBRARY; DAVID JOHNSON\/THE NEW FILLMORE<\/p>\n

Once known as the Harlem of the West, the Fillmore district was 60 percent Black. The intersection of Fillmore and Post shows the thriving community in 1947. <\/p>\n

\"theSAN FRANCISCO HISTORY CENTER, SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC LIBRARY; DAVID JOHNSON\/THE NEW FILLMORE<\/p>\n

The Western Addition in 1953 after demolition. Urban renewal destroyed 2,500 Victorians and closed 883 businesses. Nearly 20,000 residents lost homes. <\/p>\n

Bulldozed Businesses <\/p>\n

Every day, Alex Gottas writes down his old address on a slip of paper: 1812 O\u2019Farrell Street. The 94-year-old surrounds himself with mementos of the home where he lived more than half a century ago. A photograph of his former building hangs in the kitchen, and he uses the street name in his email address.<\/p>\n

Gottas lived in the Fillmore for 30 years with his large Lebanese family. He and his three sisters, two brothers, and parents shared five spacious bedrooms; the family\u2019s store, Alex Grocery, took up the ground level. Almost all the customers were Black, Gottas recalls. The most popular products were kerosene and Dixie Peach pomade.<\/p>\n

The redevelopment campaign seized the home and grocery store in 1960. \u201cIt was a good business, thriving,\u201d Gottas says. \u201cThat was my father\u2019s livelihood. He actually had a heart attack from the deal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"formerCarolyn Fong<\/p>\n

Former Fillmore district resident Mattie Scott at her home in Oakland. Scott recalls watching bulldozers demolish her neighborhood in the 1960s under urban renewal. <\/p>\n

Scott also recalls the sudden closing of businesses; before, shopping trips were an important part of life in the Fillmore. She moved to San Francisco with her family in 1965, eventually ending up in a fourplex at Steiner and McAllister. \u201cWe didn\u2019t have to go out of the community for anything. We\u2019d go to dinner and shop for Easter clothes on the same block as the Fillmore Auditorium,\u201d she says. \u201cWe had our own pharmacy on Golden Gate and Fillmore. We had all of our Black physicians.\u201d<\/p>\n

The changes seemed to happen overnight. \u201cOur community looked like a war zone hit it,\u201d Scott says. \u201cThe only thing you could see was the Jones temple and the top of the Fillmore Auditorium.\u2026 Everything else was flattened.\u201d The reconstruction of major roadways\u2014in particular, the widening of Geary Boulevard into a six-lane thoroughfare\u2014severed the Western Addition into parts. <\/p>\n

Today, Black-owned businesses in the Fillmore are few but steadfast: Miyako Old Fashioned Ice Cream has been serving scoops for over eight decades; Minnie Bell\u2019s Soul Movement, which opened in 2024, has made the Fillmore a destination for fried chicken and soul food again; Honey Art Studio, a gallery offering classes and live music, produces programming that addresses the community\u2019s history. The space recently hosted The Fillmore Eclipse<\/a>, an immersive play set in a 1958 jazz club where returnees from a Japanese American detention camp meet San Franciscans affected by urban renewal\u2014a mingling of two dark legacies of displacement. <\/p>\n

\"isacCarolyn Fong<\/p>\n

Isac Gutfreund outside his childhood home on Oak Street. His family was part of the Fillmore\u2019s Jewish community that was displaced during redevelopment.<\/p>\n

Displaced Neighbors<\/p>\n

Prior to redevelopment, a sizable portion of San Francisco\u2019s Jewish population lived in the Fillmore. Among those residents was Isac Gutfreund, now 78. Gutfreund was born in Italy in a displaced persons camp, where he lived for four years before immigrating with his parents to the United States. After arriving in San Francisco in 1951, his family found a flat on Oak Street, which they called home for a decade.<\/p>\n

Gutfreund recalls Jewish immigrants clogging city streets with rented trucks that they used to haul people\u2019s discarded items. \u201cThen they took everything they collected and put it in stores to sell,\u201d he says. \u201cA lot of them did very well that way\u2014they became entrepreneurs.\u201d<\/p>\n

McAllister Street was the main thoroughfare for most of the Jewish immigrants. There was the Orthodox shul, the Ukrainian bakery, and Liber\u2019s bookstore. At Goldinski\u2019s, the neighborhood butcher, customers selected their live chickens for slaughtering. Gutfreund remembers shopping at Drabkin\u2019s Delicatessen with his mother. \u201cYou\u2019d walk in, and there was a barrel of pickles and a barrel of herring right next to each other,\u201d he says. \u201cI can still smell the aroma. It was like in a shtetl.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many Jewish families moved out before the height of redevelopment and relocated to the Sunset and Richmond districts. Gutfreund\u2019s family, however, stayed longer, and he enjoyed the diversity of the Fillmore. A close Black friend became Gutfreund\u2019s unofficial protector. \u201cIf anybody ever tried to intimidate me, or entice a fight, he would stem it,\u201d Gutfreund recalls. There were also the Benders, Gutfreund\u2019s neighbors, an African American family. They would occasionally invite him over for dinner: \u201cFirst time I ever had Southern fried chicken,\u201d Gutfreund says. \u201cIt was probably the best chicken I ever had.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Fillmore also had a large Japanese American population. Before redevelopment, part of the area was often referred to as Nihonmachi\u2014or Japantown. Judy Hamaguchi, the president of the Japanese American Citizens League\u2019s San Francisco chapter, was raised in the Western Addition by immigrant parents. They owned and operated Hisago, a homestyle Japanese restaurant on Buchanan Street. \u201cIt was great being at the table with a Black family and best friends with the Jewish folks who lived in the area,\u201d Hamaguchi says.<\/p>\n

Hisago was near the nightclub Bop City, which Jimbo Edwards owned. Edwards looked out for Hamaguchi and her younger brother while their mother worked long hours at the restaurant. \u201cJimbo would grab us and say, \u2018Where are you going?\u2019\u200a\u201d she recalls. \u201cHe lifted up my brother and held my hand and walked us across the street. He opened the restaurant door and said, \u2018Hey, Nancy, your babies are here.\u2019 He did that many times.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the bulldozers arrived in the 1960s, Hamaguchi was too young to understand what was happening. Her section of the neighborhood was one of the last to be torn down. \u201cI used to sit on the fire escape and watch all of it,\u201d she says. \u201cEverything beyond Geary Boulevard almost looked like a desert.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paul Osaki, the executive director of the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California, says his community is often left out of the story of urban renewal. \u201cOf the 5,000-plus Japanese that used to live in San Francisco\u2019s Japantown, we have maybe a handful left,\u201d he says. Osaki describes urban renewal as a \u201csecond evacuation,\u201d following the detention of Japanese Americans during World War II. \u201cNo other people in the United States, other than the Indigenous people, were physically moved by the government out of their neighborhood twice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"paulCarolyn Fong<\/p>\n

Paul Osaki, pictured in his office, oversees programming and services for the Northern California Japanese American community. He refers to urban renewal as the \u201csecond evacuation,\u201d following World War II. <\/p>\n

Scattered Landscape<\/p>\n

In 1969, the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency<\/a> distributed a pamphlet titled You and Your Housing to Fillmore residents before the second stage of demolition. \u201cThis booklet has been prepared for your convenience,\u201d it reads. \u201cIt will help answer your questions & explain your rights & privileges.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scott recalls the painful anticipation before the construction began. \u201cI remember the conversations of folks at the church, at the NAACP meetings, crying and saying, \u2018What are we going to do?\u2019\u200a\u201d she says. \u201cI remember watching [residents] Mary Rogers and LeRoy King laying down in front of the bulldozers to stop them from tearing down an area of Fillmore. I thought the bulldozer was going to actually take them off, but it didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ongoing discussion regarding the Fillmore\u2019s future has been brought into focus by a new and controversial undertaking: the Upper Fillmore Revitalization Project, funded with $100 million by venture capitalist Neil Mehta in 2024. Mehta, who grew up in the Fillmore and lives there today, hopes to entice small businesses back to the area with the promise of investment. So far, Mehta has funded the purchase of a handful of buildings on Fillmore Street and has raised the rent on retail spaces, forcing several restaurants and shops to close. One local business owner recently characterized Mehta\u2019s project as a \u201cland grab\u201d in an op-ed for the San Francisco Examiner.<\/p>\n

Walking through the Fillmore today, the tragedy and confusion of the place is palpable. Old Victorian homes\u2014that somehow survived demolition\u2014are sandwiched between empty lots and brutalist apartment complexes. The Fillmore has become a place of contrasts: new money beside housing projects, heartbreak beside hope. Though much of the original Fillmore community has relocated and rebuilt across San Francisco, those who experienced redevelopment will never forget. \u201cWe want to preserve the history and the true story of what happened,\u201d Scott says.\u2022<\/p>\n

Related Stories\"Headshot<\/p>\n

Julie Zigoris<\/a> is a storyteller in San Francisco, where she works to uncover the people and places that make the city unique. Her work has been honored by the Society of Professional Journalists, the San Francisco Press Club, the Los Angeles Press Club, and the Journalism Association of Community Colleges.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s not very many people left to tell the story,\u201d says Mattie Scott, a community activist on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":231493,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[105015,105019,105021,105014,105022,105020,105011,105016,105017,105018,101,105010,52509,103,102,105013,104,106,105,105023,105012],"class_list":["post-231492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-black-san-francisco-history","tag-buchanan-street-mall-renovation","tag-certificates-of-preference-sf","tag-fillmore-displacement","tag-fillmore-heritage-center","tag-generational-wealth-loss-san-francisco","tag-harlem-of-the-west","tag-japanese-american-displacement-sf","tag-jewish-community-fillmore","tag-neil-mehta-upper-fillmore-revitalization-project","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-fillmore-district","tag-san-francisco-gentrification","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-san-francisco-redevelopment-history","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news","tag-urban-renewal-1949-federal-housing-act","tag-western-addition-urban-renewal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231492\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}